With an election on the horizon and Stormont closing for business, the rush was on within DAERA last week to get some last-minute news out.

Included was an announcement by Agriculture Minister Michelle McIlveen that the AFBI site at Crossnacreevy, -in her Strangford constituency, is to remain open for the foreseeable future.

That comes after a statement back in August 2015 that the then-Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill had agreed to an AFBI proposal to close the site. As a result, AFBI were to withdraw from arable research, recommended list trials and move official plant testing (Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability – DUS) work to another AFBI location.

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However, it now looks as though a change of Minister has brought a change of thinking. An AFBI spokesperson confirmed to the Irish Farmers Journal that DAERA had requested that AFBI undertake a detailed feasibility study into their plans. “Taking into consideration the relative costs of the options evaluated, the risks associated with them and relevant non-monetary issues, the preferred option within the feasibility study was for the current DUS programme to be retained at the AFBI Crossnacreevy site,” confirmed the spokesperson.

It also now seems that some of the recommended list trial work might be retained at Crossnacreevy. “AFBI is currently developing plans, based on industry funding, to introduce a new grass variety evaluation system and a component of this work will involve grass variety testing at the Crossnacreevy site,” confirmed the spokesperson. However, they did not give any commitment that arable research might yet be reprieved.

The Ulster Farmers Union has requested a meeting with AFBI CEO Sinclair Mayne to discuss the detail of the announcement and what AFBI’s plans are for arable research.